TCI 2016 Conference Final Report

GLOBAL CHANGES: challenges for innovation clusters 19th TCI Global Conference | Eindhoven, the Netherlands 2016

REPORT

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SUMMARY TCI 2016 Global Conference was open, highly dynamic and innovative!

Altogether 500 professionals, academics and policymakers from all over the world have attended the TCI Global Conference 2016 in Eindhoven to discuss clusters and its effect on economic growth. Organisers Brainport Development and Wageningen University & Research look back at the 19th TCI Global Conference as being a great success. The conference: Global Changes, challenges for innovation clusters, took place in an open atmosphere. Attendees shared their opinion, knowledge and ideas, and truly interacted with others. This report shares most of the content that has been discussed during the three consecutive conference days (Tours, Summit, Working).

Reporting the conference topics On the Summit Day a diverse range of topics has been discussed, all related to clusters. During the opening, the mayor explained that the Brainport Eindhoven Region is home to a number of successful clusters initiated by companies that started long-term cooperation with a common goal and agenda.

Altogether speakers have emphasized the importance of start-ups and scale-ups for sustainable long-term innovation capacity. Start-ups are innovative and bring dynamism. For them it is essential to continuously obtain new skills, to be agile (adaptive to machine learning, cyber security, etc.). Scale-ups are the job-engine of the future. In Europe their amount is lacking, and therefore the single market, capital and talent need to be optimised. More specifically for clusters, internationalisation is an important aspect. Just as the communality on objectives and outputs among cluster members. But maybe most important is trust. It is about personal relationships among cluster members, with the cluster members and all actors involved.

Cluster policy should contribute to unique strengths in a region and not focus on removing weaknesses (RIS3 strategy). These strengths ideally have a certain critical mass to build upon. Clusters can help to diagnose these strengths (EDP), determine its competitiveness and to strategize; by and setting up a profile. Increasing the (related) variety in a region can enhance regional economic power, as different industries inspire new activities and learning opportunities on related issues. In economic policy in India clusters are a way of organizing the medium and small enterprises (MSME). In Russia these are tools available (as subsidies, tax regimes, cooperation with government-sponsored enterprises) for a few leading clusters.

Competition is changing and the organization of enterprises and clusters are changing too. Internet of Things has the potential to change the nature and the principles of product design and to value chains and to offer new products and services. Here, IT and R&D are blurring. In Healthcare services, Philips is focussing on the collection of data in order to develop new valuable applications. DSM has taken the route to develop products and services for worldwide grand challenges to ensure their future business.

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On the Working Day there were 45 interactive sessions, in different set-ups: pitches, Q&A, video sessions, interactive work shops, etc. The sessions were spread among five themes: Cities & Competitiveness, Modern Cluster Policy, Managing Learning Networks, Food Clusters complemented by the Academic Track. Summaries of these sessions are in this Report. Some of the topics were: a

a

a a a a a a a a a

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How to enhance growth explained by Michel Catinat, the EC Directorate-General for Internal Market, Industry, Entrepreneurship and SMEs The past, present and future of cluster policies in different countries and regions together with cluster experts from around the world The role of cluster manager as civic entrepreneur Smart cities such as Eindhoven The experiences on clusters enabling city-economies such as those in Barcelona and Glasgow The cluster development in small/remote regions Working on leadership applied at cluster initiatives Create and develop food clusters and how to apply the circular economy at them The practical implications of scientific research related to clusters and cluster practice Cluster Governance: how to best intersect with the strategic decision-making of clusters?

Collaborative Learning; to what extent can clusters deliberately create collaboration among the actors involved?

Cluster Evaluation, how can clusters be assessed and valuated and what lessons learnt can we draw?

New: a 3-day format and the special Food-theme The conference had an engineered agenda. On the first, Touring Day, attendees experienced first-hand different clusters and regions of the Netherlands. On the Summit Day, stories on Dutch cluster policies were complemented by global perspectives (India, Russia and USA). And topics as start-ups & scale-ups, smart specialization, changing strategies of multinationals (Philips and DSM) and the latest developments in the Food sector, were related to clusters. The final, Working Day, focused on interactive learning in workshops. All three days were filled with enjoyable informal activities. Special topic during the conference was Food. This was expressed with a Cluster Tour, a summit day story by Mr Zhu and several sessions n the working day.

Moreover, Mr Onion offered food innovation experiences along the program. Most remarkable was the FoodTech Experience Dinner.

Looking back At the end of the conference Dr. Christian Ketels, the President of the TCI Network, recognized TCI 2016 as one of the most successful conferences with particularities like the conference application that made the whole event colourful. Just as the selection of the locations, the innovative food and the 3-day concept.

Next to this report that describes much of the content that has been shared during the 3 days, there are other ways to look back at TCI 2016. Photos, PowerPoints, articles and a special after movie are available at www.tci2016.org.

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Content SUMMARY 3 Content 5 Introduction 7 Facts & Figures 8 Touring Day – November 8th 2016

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Summit Day - November 9th 2016

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Opening & Welcome

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BLOCK 1: The international perspective on clusters and their

physical location

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BLOCK 2: Economic growth, start-up and scale-up companies

and their link with clusters

BLOCK 3: Scientist forum on Smart Specialisation related to clusters

BLOCK 4: The transformation of competition and its business

implications

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Working Day - November 10th 2016

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ACADEMIC TRACK

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Cluster evaluation (A1.1)

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Cluster evaluation (A1.2)

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Collaborative learning (A2)

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Cluster Governance (A3)

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THEME: Cities & Competitiveness (C)

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Failing with clusters (C3)

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Understanding the dynamics of territory (C5)

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Cities as driving force for competitiveness and clustering (C7)

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How to anchor thematic cluster in urban ecosystems (C8)

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Organizing urban systems for competitive advantage (C9)

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THEME: Modern Cluster Policy (P)

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Enhancing growth from an EU perspective (P1)

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Scotland’s next chapter (P2)

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Towards a green transformation (P3)

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A taste of worldwide cluster approaches (P4)

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Re-aligning clusters to policy priorities (P5)

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Dutch Clusters on Stage (P6)

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Evaluation in Nordic Countries (P7)

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Today’s and tomorrow’s cluster approach (P8)

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Cluster strengthening macro-regional collaboration (P10)

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Adapting cluster policies for S3 (P11)

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THEME: Managing Learning Networks (N)

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Cluster manager as civic entrepreneur (N1)

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Leveraging knowledge for firms and clusters (N2)

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Intercontinental cluster collaboration (N4.1)

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Intercontinental cluster collaboration: how to get started? (N4.2)

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Understanding internationalisation (N6)

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Cluster governance and leadership (N7)

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Cluster development in small, remote regions (N8)

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An expert perspective on new Brainport clusters (N9)

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Supporting innovation environments: do’s and don’ts (N11)

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The future of leadership and organizational development in clusters

(N12)

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Team effectiveness (NS1)

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Group dynamics in multiparty collaboration (NS2)

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THEME: Food Clusters (F)

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Creating food clusters: lessons from governments worldwide (F1)

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Internationalization & lean landing (F2)

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Applying the circular economy (F3)

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Food cluster Xchange: toolkit (F5)

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RE-Tour Agrifood (F6)

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RE-tour Food Innovation (F7)

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High-tech & food matchmaking session (F9)

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Food clusters: creating a common policy advice (F10)

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Check in: Polls Q&A

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Introduction This report shares a lot of the content that has been discussed during the TCI Global Conference 2016. On Day 1, the Touring Day, the conference offered deep insights into specific clusters in the (Southeast) of the Netherlands. For the participants, there were in total 9 Cluster Tours to choose from. On Day 2, the Summit Day, world-renowed speakers shared their stories on international economic policies, start-ups and scale-ups, smart specialisation and the transformation of business, all related to clusters. On Day 3, the Working Day, there were over 45 sessions arranged in different set-ups: interactive workshops, pitches and Q&A, skills labs and presentations, to have as much interaction as possible. The sessions were categorised in several themes: Cities & Competitiveness, Managing Learning Networks and Modern Cluster Policy and Food Clusters complemented by an Academic Track.

This report is the result of many (student) reporters joining the sessions on Day 2 and Day 3 and making notes of what they have heard. The TCI 2016 organising team has edited these stories and compiled them into this one document. Moreover, the summary and facts & figures have been added, just as some of the pictures that have been taking during the conference. Altogether this Report is meant to update readers on what has been discussed, in what kind of setting, during TCI 2016 in Eindhoven. The style of writing in the desciription of the sessions, especially on the Working Day, differs. This is because they have been written by different (student) reporters, having different backgrounds (journalism and economics mostly). As a result of the way this Report has come about, there may be errors in it for which the organising team cannot be held responsible. No rights can be derived.

This report is setup in the sequence of the 3 conference days. For the Touring Day there is only a photo collage. For Day 2 there is a description of what has been said by each speaker in each of the 4 blocks that filled the day. For most of the sessions of Day 3 there is a short description, categorized in the 4 conference themes and the Academic Track. The table of contents is useful to find specific sessions. Unfortunately, there are no descriptions of sessions: C1, C4, C6, P9, N5, NS4 and F4.

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Facts & Figures A big interested audience More than

500

registrants

39 nationalities

80

% engaged users

836 polls

1.599

37% female 1/5 of each: clusters, companies, national government, regional government, universities

Buzzing social media

1.049

Mobile app was a success!

3.903

Appreciation by participants (0-5)

Working day:

Website www.tci2016.org

19.714

sessions

10.060

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likes

1.415 photos shared Summit day:

tweets

status updates

unique visitors

4,2

4,4

(N=86) (N=57)

TOURING DAY November 8th 2016

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There were in total 9 Cluster Tours to choose from. On each of the Tours the ‘cluster story’ has been shared; explaining how the cluster has emerged, who the members are and also how the cluster and the cluster organisation is structured and financed. In each of the programmes there were visits to companies, knowledge institutes and / or research facilities.

High Tech Tour, Software Tour, Agrifood Tour, Food Innovation Tour, Bio based Tour, Cleantech Tour, Smart mobility Tour, Sports & Tech Tour, Personalised Health Tour

CLUSTER TOUR

LOCATIONS

1 Cleantech Auping (Deventer), Industrie Park Kleefse Waard – IPKW (Arnhem) 2 Biobased Nieuw Prinsenland (Dinteloord), Green Chemistry Campus (Bergen op Zoom) 3 Food Innovation ZLTO, (Den Bosch), Wagenigen University & Research (Wageningen) 4 Personalised Health Novio Tech Campus, Radboud University Medical Center (Nijmegen) 5 Agrifood Food Tech Brainport (Helmond), Freshpark (Venlo) 6 Smart Mobility DAF (Eindhoven), Automotive Campus (Helmond) 7 High Tech VDL ETG (Eindhoven), High Tech XL and Philips MEMS Foundry (High Tech Campus Eindhoven) 8 Software Unit 040, Prowise (Eindhoven) 9 Sports & Tech Genneper Parken, PSV, Fieldlab Sport & Vitality (Eindhoven)

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SUMMIT DAY November 9th 2016

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On the second day the mayor of Eindhoven and a representative of the Dutch Ministry of Economic Affairs have welcomed the audience of more than 400 people. After that, there were various inspiring dialogues on cluster-related topics by world-class speakers, moderated by Christian Ketels (Harvard Business School and TCI Network). There are stories from new perspectives, disciplines and other ways of thinking that provide a useful contribution to the current discussions on clusters: start-ups and scaleups, various international perspective on clusters, a scientific view and future business along with the cluster contribution to this.

Opening & Welcome

Mr. Christian Ketels • Harvard Business School and TCI Network - setting the scene about clusters a clusters have to be seen as an organization principle a clusters have to be seen as practice, not as a constructed frameworks a the international aspect of clusters, exchange and learning in TCI Network

Mr. John Jorritsma • Mayor Municipality of Eindhoven welcomed the participants in Eindhoven ‘’The city of innovation in the Netherlands, where the future is invented’’. Eindhoven has technological world players and national sophisticated technological suppliers, who together make solutions for the Grand Challenges of our times. Focussing on connecting technology with energy, health, mobility, food. “With our skills on technology and design we re-invent the world, that’s what we do.” Brainport Region hosts ASML, the mother company of all the chips in the world, NXP, with its knowledge of automotive, and Philips, who improves our health. In the Brainport Eindhoven Region there are many cluster initiatives initiated by companies that started long-term cooperation with a common goal and agenda. The Brainport Region is one of the three main economical top-regions in the Netherlands. Together with Schiphol and the harbour of Rotterdam.

Mr. Jasper Wesseling • Ministry of Economic Affairs about Dutch Topsector (economic) policy Focussing on 11 sectors of the Dutch economy, which is in its heart triple helix collaboration between the private sector, research institutes and government. Innovation is depending on a regulatory environment, human capital and international connections. The Netherlands should be seen as one region. However, the regional level also remains important internationally.

Examples of regional clusters: Brainport with hightech research institutes (Holst centre), Wageningen University and Research Centre has a leadership role in the establishment of regional food clusters, Leiden region with its bioscience park shows that decision-making takes courage. aa

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The common lesson is that strong partners and focus are required for clusters. The National government is working on a joint agenda with Brainport Region, which is seen as is a growth engine that should become even stronger. It has been a government decision to create an agenda, in which pushing R&D and attention for human capital is expressed (incl. cosmopolitan, attractive environment / living conditions).

BLOCK 1: The international perspective on clusters and their physical location

Mr. Constantijn van Oranje Nassau • Special Envoy of StartupDelta He spent weeks in US to learn about digital disruption (did an Eisenhower fellowship).

People have a bias towards clusters that they can relate to. The legitimacy of government is undermined nowadays; it has a span of opportunities but does not know how to use that potential.

Development of new public services is needed. Universities are engines of innovation, often not well connected to start-up systems. Corporate companies’ existing business models are threatened. No single strategy fits all. More and more focus on start-ups. Constantijns lessons from the US: a these are self-organizing and self-propelling ecosystems a there is support for start-ups and private initiatives from the city/state level a these ecosystems face the new challenge of low costs (high competition) a data driven growth takes place in IT based applications a every city catches up with support schemes on venture capital, pitches of business cases Netherlands is catching up. Attention and public support to start-ups is growing. The Netherlands is a small country with a small market Amsterdam is the top of the Dutch ecosystem and faces the following challenges: a Lack of urgency and ambition (as we are too well-organized) a Vested sectoral and regional interests a Too much focused on incremental versus disruptive innovation a Research is not innovation (get ideas to market!) a Start-up hype versus priority long-term competitiveness (in other words: starting is not scaling) a Volume is not the same as smartness in funding (investing) a It's not just about capital, it's also about human resources able to deal with such funds Startup Delta wants to create a platform, one system with regional and sectoral clusters (13).

Strengthening at home and connected to the world, in which young people AND those already working in technology sector are empowered to sustain long-term innovation capacity: network, capital, markets, knowledge and talent. What is necessary? a Common narrative (language) a More innovative procurement a Support innovators (companies!) - don't start to change the system first a including the entire society

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Mr. Mukesh Gulati • Indian Institute of Management Indian economy is changing. The surplus of agricultural sector is flowing away. Social media is more popular today and has more impact. Clusters are central concepts to support the economy, mainly in organising all the medium and small enterprises (MSME) in India (49 million enterprises, 111 million employees). There are 650 manufacturing clusters, but this sector is not anymore growing fast. Growth is shown by the service sector in which are 3500 cluster initiatives.

7 rapid changes impacting MSME clusters: 1. Rapid mechanization (with improving productivity which is increasing jobs) and reducing jobs at the same time 2. Digitalisation: e-commerce: 40% internet penetration, 40 million people employed, expectation: 100 bln gross business (11.8% total) in 2020 3. Skill gap; 93% labour force unorganized, only 3-4% of total work force certified! Ganjam cashew cluster, 3 month programme 4. Financial gap: non-availability of institutional finance (92% relying on friends, family and own pocket); small start-ups providing new kinds of funding; new policy initiatives for financing 5. Social security access; Reaching the unorganized workers with Pensions and Life insurance 6. Rising environmental concerns and response with Media awareness, Low-tech innovations, e.g. textile dyeing -> zero emittance tolerance 7. Access to (alternate) renewable sources of energy Way ahead: a Digital technology is a great potential for the organization of the production. Clustering is not only physical agglomeration (village-based, MSME supply chains, virtual cluster) a Strengthening of conventional clusters; use social capital as glue. Improve cooperation between people within a geographical area at a certain sector a Beyond conventional clusters there are new areas for clusters as green infra and rural urban relationships a Creation of new jobs is a challenge for clusters a Evaluation of clusters (with the cluster observatory).

Objective of clusters not only productivity, but also quality of jobs and finance!

Mr. Artem Shadrim • Economy Ministry of Russia Clusters development started in 2008 with an included a subsidy of > ¤ 80 mln. There were different initiators, but final selection was made by government. Russian cluster policy is an example of top down cluster policies. Different types can be distinguished: standard industrial clusters, innovation clusters (R&D-driven) and hightech clusters.

The Russian Cluster Policy focuses on a few leading clusters. For these the following tools are available: subsidies, tax regimes, cooperation with government-sponsored enterprises and efficient and transparent project management principles. Project offices have been raised, working groups have been set up and cooperation between clusters is being supported. SMEs are supported with special measures (f.e. supply system to engage them as supplier of large cooperation). Cluster development is monitored on output, jobs, growth, investment, startups and members. New trend is cluster branding, to profile the clusters.

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Discussion among all speakers: The presentations showed that internationalisation of clusters is important because of entering the global markets in order to receive Return on Investment. Next to that, clusters are searching for their thematic counterparts, focussing on exchange and learning. And, trust is seen as very important; it is all about personal relationships (people, in the end of the day). There should be communality on objectives and outputs within clusters.

BLOCK 2: Economic growth, start-up and scale-up companies and their link with clusters

Mr. Paul Hofheinz • The Lisbon Council, 'Think tank for 21st century Europe' Challenges ahead of us that SMEs play a role in: a Jobs; they are most present in SME (they are the motor of the economy), however, they are hard to organize and they are fragmented a Innovation; SMEs are flexible, able to act quickly. They are going (and communicating) global from day 1! Large manufacturers face efficiency issues (productivity versus cost) and will not contribute to job creation; SME’s will not be job-engine of the future. Only scale up will lead to growth. This is what should be supported. a Scale up in Europe is failing. Manifesto has made a roadmap with the following claims, to: • complete the single market • mobilise capita • activate talent • power innovation • broaden education • monitor, measure and evaluate the right approach a Many EU entrepreneurs left Europe for Silicon Valley. Not the capital, but the weather attracted them. Companies move because of the market: 330 mln consumers to sell to, e.g. Spotify a Location still matters, interaction within clusters lead to new ideas and initiatives.

People prefer this within their own living environment – they do not tend to follow the jobs. Conditions for innovation as a basis for new developments should be created.

Dialogue is important.

Ms. Claire Ruskin • Cambridge Network Ltd. On the disruptive function of start-ups. There are only an extraordinary few disruptive startups: the success is for early movers, often adopted by bigger companies, they deliver financial success and can be the origin of clusters. There are 15 companies from 0 to 1 bln dollar valuations in Cambridge; often R&D departments from multinational companies. Mind: multi sector companies have been settled, which gives opportunities for cross-overs!

Start-ups require new skills: they need to be agile (adaptive to machine learning, cyber security, etc.). Learning is key element in the Cambridge ecosystem, next to the small scale (people know one another), the university and the openness to new ideas. aa

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Cambridge Network, which exists 18 years, has been supporting this by creating an ecosystem: a Get people together: lectures, dinners, breakfast meetings a Exchange over and mix disciplines: stimulate variety (i.t.o. experienced + newcomers, large/small, various sectors, disciplines) a Train entrepreneurs to be leaders (formal techniques) a Attract and recruit the best people for growth a Profile for funding (investment) a Provide office/buildings/ infrastructure to work: campus a Set up peer learning groups for CEOs, CIOs, CTOs; it helps to have people walk around and make connections: have a glass of wine afterwards!

The cluster development started with a 'Science Park' and resulted in technology consultancies that enabled university brains to be accessible for companies. High-quality university in the middle of these communities! (Silicon Valley/Cambridge) - to attract new talent and ideas.

Preference is for government not to be involved; however they take care of infrastructure, education and affordable attractive housing. Note: we overtax labour; make it easier to hire people NOT to fire people.

BLOCK 3: Scientist forum on Smart Specialisation related to clusters

Moderator Mr. James Wilson • Orkestra-Basque Institute of Competitiveness What drives differences in regional performance? What does that mean for policy?

What is the key challenge for research?

Mr. Christian Ketels • Harvard Business School and TCI Network Main question is what drives prosperity? For Ketels it is a combination of: what you have inherited and created, what you do and how well you do it. Policy insights and actions can help. Many things matter, but there is no silver bullet. It is important to focus on what you already have, knowing that every location is different, but all adhere to the same economic principles. And to focus on sequencing, because success is driven by unique strengths not by removing weaknesses (models mostly focus on failure). Change requires action by many; not only by government.

Clusters can help too. The leverage of clusters is proven to contribute to prosperity. Clusters help to diagnose the economic activity and competitiveness/ market and to strategize; by getting into the unique strengths and setting up a profile. Clusters provide efficiency towards smaller counterparts and clusters can be used as channel to enlarge the outreach. Next to that clusters have the potential to collective action undertaken by people (partners) with a common interest and shared goal. Main challenges are to strengthen the strengths, to come to cluster dynamics and to apply an integrated approach across policy areas.

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Mr. Dominique Foray • Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne The key factor for regional performance is a critical mass. Not in all sectors. The critical mass provides a set of specific capabilities required for RIS3, which particularize their selves and which are unique and distinguishes the region from other regions. This process is called the entrepreneurial discovery process (EDP) and leads to the selection of specific industries.

Critical mass leads to scale and agglomeration. Government needs to have focus! Differentiate and combine unique strengths with high potential. There is a basis for research; strengths should be shown by evidence, by a true analysis of resources. Do not take up sectoral priorities as this is a too high level of aggregation. Rather aim at modes of transformation to establish new ones. Start by defining focused priorities. Then apply smart specialization in addition to normal/ regular policies.

Mr. Ron Boschma • University of Utrecht and Centre for Innovation, Research and Competence in the Learning Economy (CIRCLE) at Lund University Regions have to move on and develop economic activities. Creative destruction creates new economic activity. New specializations arise, diversification depend on territorial capabilities.

Within regions there are often similar capabilities shared (knowledge, skills). This is the result of related variety: different industries inspire new activities and learning opportunities. Then, diversification builds on related issues. Suggestion: upgrade complexity of activities, as these cannot be produced by everyone and require specific local capabilities. And it is also important to connect to policy and increase the brokerage effects.

Implications: a successful diversification possible (relatedness, complexity, connectivity) a bottom-up policy / no one size fits all: process led by entrepreneurs a the more complex, the more benefits a the higher relatedness, the lower the risk

Discussion: should we specialize?

Who determines specialization profile? Foray states that all regions are specialized. Question is should we drive specialization? a more focus is needed a compatibility between state actions and bottom-up components a politics tends towards one size fits all a commission: "smart focus" proposed, but "too late, we will stick with specialization" 'Entrepreneurial discovery process' vs government trying to play this role. Ketels argues that government should analyse and decide on competitive advantage to focus on. Important is to search for the intersections between sectors. This is manageable. Boschma argues that entrepreneurial discovery is the most important aspect of the framework. Entrepreneurs should take the initiative and government should support and fund the RIS3 process.

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Discussion: How to move beyond what we have today?

Rather be less ambitious as this EDP-process is so complex to manage. The choice for smart specialization is informed by the grand scheme of challenges, developments and road maps. Are regions ready for this task? RIS3 is interesting for less developed regions and for regions in transition. This requires a lot from local policy makers, these regions often have a poor governance track record. In peripheral regions: the ones that need it most have least capacity to do so. Search engine for what we don't do rather than seeking to strengthen what we do. Strategy is not enough: an integrated approach with action is needed.

Conclusions a Foray; clusters are about critical mass. The process of defining clusters has to be refined. Related variety is a mechanism for smart specialization. Cluster management is key player in processes of analysis and entrepreneurial discovery. a Ketels; challenges are not in concepts, they are in practical implementation. Much gets lost in translation: smart specialization sold as practical process tool - we needed more learning. a Boschma; we are poor in assuring concrete policy recommendations. There is not much empirical evidence to guide this process.

BLOCK 4: The transformation of competition and its business implications

Mr. Edward Zhu • CHIC Group, Shanghai Creating Value through Innovation of World Food Port. The Netherlands is like a cluster itself best positioned for food and agriculture. Zhu speaks about SIMIS: Solution Investment Management Innovation Services. The CHIC Group "We only grow when our people grow!": a shares technology, knowledge a has a campus setup a is involved in trading, technology a solution, investment, management, innovation, service a innovation on products, services and business models a covers total supply chain on food (production - processing –marketing) Zhu presents a large scale integrated agrofood cluster, a Food Hub as a concept, where all aspects of the agrofood value chain (production, post harvesting and material handling) are being brought together at a port location, economic development zone, to diminish the transaction costs, to contribute to food challenges and sustainability. The value chain is integrated by technologies. It is an example of a cluster based economy. World Food Port has a declaration to intensify cooperation on modern food and agriculture NL-China. The Netherlands has a lot to offer to the world. For China: food and agriculture is a key driver of growth and headache for government! 'One belt one road' / New Silk Road. 400 mln citizens shopping on average 4 hrs/day in China. Issues in China; its growth is based on labour inputs and waste.

China has never invested in long-term technology. Killers are: congestion, low efficiency, and no integration, and high waste, high transaction costs.

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Ms. Kathleen Mitford • PTC Taking advantage of Internet of Things that is changing products & services, business models and thereby the economy . Examples of Smart connective products are smart medication, thermostat connected to internet, smart tennis racket. The question is who is leading and where are the data? A recent development is that the large IT companies are entering the clusters and exploring the opportunities to elaborate new relationships with all kind of partners within the clusters, and arrive to develop new services. It has been showed already in the cluster tours to health cluster and sports cluster. IoT has the potential change the nature and the principles of product design and to value chains and to offer new products and services. Competition is changing and the organization of enterprises and clusters are changing too. But there is a need to de-mystifying IoT too. Internet of things = hardware + software + Wi-Fi + digital product. IT and R&D are blurring.

Likewise do the existing relations from enterprises with digital providers and the large potential of the cloud, data and large IT companies. In the agriculture sector, there is interaction with weather data system. Now multiple systems are combined. Are these partners or competitors? Related to Porter's five forces: the bargaining power of suppliers. Is the functionality in the product or in the cloud? IoT has an impact on suppliers and entire clusters. Brings up the question: Should these be of open or closed systems? Next challenge is to exercise with augmented reality to make sense of these data and to translate into new applications and added value activities. IoT may have the potential to further profile and innovate the clusters.

Mr. Hans de Jong • Philips Benelux The Digital revolution: a focus on healthy lifestyle and health care. Health care costs increasing more rapidly then GDP. More than 1/3 of population is diagnosed with cancer. Technology allows for quicker and cheaper health care. Philips perspectives on health care from human beings. Instead of care and cure, the new approach is focussing on collection of data in order to get information by new applications as scanning devices, which indicate the health and the possibility that people are becoming ill. The information can be used to decide/ advice about a healthy way of living (food, sports etc.). With the integrated information, Philips is developing health services to people. At the High Tech Campus Eindhoven, together with Eindhoven medical sector and a platform of all kind of professionals, different forms of application are being developed.

Mr. Atzo Nicolaï • DSM Golden triangle to green square. DSM is really a transformation company. What started as a coal mining industry, the company changed their strategy successfully to being a chemical plant and more recently focussed on life sciences and the bio based solutions, one of the answers to the global grand challenges. The secret to success is identify grand challenges, find company answers/resources to these challenges, concentrate on high-growth economies, be innovative (here tax incentives are crucial), be sustainable, do acquisitions /make partnerships, think of an "eco+" label: better for environment, more sustainable = more profitable win/win, regulation is sometimes desirable (de-regulation versus good regulation is often key). aa

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Brightlands Chemelot Campus (BCC): a DSM initiative, with university Maastricht and province of Limburg as partners. It is an equal parts joint venture, has >150 site users. BCC is seeking to cluster these companies; this is initiated by the private sector. There is an umbrella organization, but no real cluster organization. It is a bottom up light version of a cluster organization, a "handful of FTEs". Brightlands is an open innovation ecosystem and Chemelot is clustering organizations on the sustainable and competitive site. Together with akzo, Philips, and Google and Greenpeace, DSM is initiating a new wind park. To come to a better performance DSM asks for tax incentives and better regulations and standards.

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WORKING DAY November 10th 2016 Pitch(es) and Q&A Interactive workshop Movie sessions Presentations Soft skills Lab

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ACADEMIC TRACK Cluster evaluation (A1.1) One of the biggest challenges facing cluster practitioners and policy makers is how to truly capture the benefit of clustering. With finance under ever increasing pressure, the need to show a return on investment for clusters is ever more important, and evaluation is a vital input into cluster and cluster policy learning. As such, the issue of cluster evaluation represents a key meeting ground between academic analysis of clusters and cluster policy, and the needs of practitioners. As has been explored in many TCI discussions, cluster evaluation frameworks need to focus not only on measuring the final outcome (the effect), but also on the softer, more qualitative elements, including the benefits of greater trust and collaboration, and also the process of change (how this happened). The TCI cluster evaluation working group seeks to capture some of this learning, develop overall frameworks and share different techniques to show the value of collaboration and return on investment. This conference session seeks to take forward the work of the TCI cluster evaluation working group by bringing academics and practitioners together around questions such as: How can we capture the “human element� in evaluating leadership, collaborative behaviours (building trust) etc.? How can the evaluation of clusters contribute to understanding broader regional competitiveness impacts? How should we evaluate the interplay between the global and local forces that shape clusters? How can evaluation support the evolution and renewal of clusters? What types of surveys are being used to evaluate clusters, what have the results been, and are there common questions people are finding useful?

The aim of this academic track-session, led by James Wilson, Madeline Smith and Emily Wise, was to develop techniques for better evaluation of cluster policies and to bridge the gap between academic data and real life implementation.

Enrique Diaz Moreno (ES): Competitiveness is a very important determinant of the health of a cluster. By analysing the competitiveness of all stakeholders, using the 12 pillars of competitiveness of the World Economic Forum, cluster managers can find where companies and clusters are lacking and where they share a vision. This data can be used to present a clear path to improve good practice.

Teresa Verduzco-Garza (MX): Through the example of a pilot-test in Mexico she showed the critical factors that are related to the increase of competitiveness in transportation through a logistic cluster. Using multiple tools such as GCI and LPI index performance, diversification, logistic chain amplification, horizontal integration and traceability can be analysed. All these factors can be integrated in a linear regression model to optimize competitiveness on a national scale through logistic clusters.

Teresa Paiva (PT): Are clusters really contributing to internationalization and innovation/R&D? In a cluster evaluation you can evaluate whether or not a project was effective and had a measurable impact. For a cluster of primarily micro businesses it was clear that cluster formation helped create business on an international scale as well as stimulate the innovation of new products. Clusters seem to be able to really create value for (small) businesses.

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Eoin Byrne (IR): Presenting the findings of his recently completed PhD-thesis, Eoin made a strong case for the critical evaluation of cluster approaches. What part of clusters do we tackle and how do we choose to tackle it? He was convinced that when analysing cluster data it was important to go directly to the companies in the cluster, as cluster managers have difficulty being objective about their cluster. His PhD-thesis concludes that knowledge linkages are predominantly local, global pipelines are crucially important. And, that clusters do provide valuable chain linkages and that there is a high variation of policies between regions. There is no on-size-fits-all for policies.

Main conclusions: a By analysing competitiveness it is possible to increase cluster health and competitiveness a Clusters add value to and spark innovation in companies in the cluster a There is no one-size fits all for cluster policies

Cluster evaluation (A1.2) The second session on cluster evaluation built explicitly on discussions at the previous TCI cluster evaluation group working meeting in Barcelona (May 2016), where a key issue was identified regarding the need to capture the impacts of clusters beyond the traditional focus on economic indicators such as productivity, exports, jobs, GDP, etc. Clusters play a wider role in the regions where they are embedded and have the potential to be catalysts for the generation of ‘shared value’ that has both economic and social benefits to firms and communities.

Alwin Gerritsen (Wageningen University & Research) argued that cluster policy evaluation practice would benefit from assuming a policy learning and multi-knowledge perspective. Presently an impact based approach is dominant, but with little attention to how these evaluation results lead to policy learning. The knowledge from evaluations does not automatically lead to learning by policy actors. To bridge the boundaries between evaluators and policy makers it is critical to make the evaluation and its results significant to them. Novel evaluation approaches have emerged that are able to do this; learning evaluations and reflexive monitoring in action. Both types can be seen as examples of action research and are characterised by the inclusion of non-scientific knowledge and knowledge as capacity to act. This was illustrated by the presentation of an action research example. Finally Alwin Gerritsen presented a list of guiding principles for setting up cluster evaluations, that was developed by applying the Knowledge Governance concept: 1.

2.

3.

4.

5.

Transdisciplinarity: start with real world problems and include multiple types of knowledge Focus on social learning in a self-organised and facilitated learning community Focus on potential policy change and feedback loops Manage the boundaries between stakeholders Anchor ‘unfamiliar knowledge’ from other clusters or countries

Marta Marse (Accio) and David Adkins (Plymouth University) shared experiences in taking cluster evaluation ‘beyond GDP’. Marta Marse raised a serious of questions around how to measure the more social impacts of clusters, and set out a framework that is being developed in Catalonia. In a similar vein, David Adkins has begun testing a governancebased framework for analysing the workings and impacts of Maritime clusters beyond the purely economic.

Collaborative learning (A2) An entrepreneurial ecosystem can be defined as a set of interdependent actors and factors coordinated in such a way that they enable productive entrepreneurship within a particular territory, and support collaboration and learning within the clusters in that territory. Cambridge, Israel, Silicon Valley and Austin are well-known examples of such entrepreneurial ecosystems. In this track, we explore which conditions and factors enhance the viability and performance of entrepreneurial ecosystems; what the entrepreneurial discovery practices are; what the role of academic

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institutions in these ecosystems is; to what extent these ecosystems can be deliberately created and orchestrated, or alternatively, whether they largely emerge (without orchestration) over time; successful and less successful examples of attempts to create, shape and orchestrate entrepreneurial ecosystems; and what the relationships are between economic growth, regional labour market, new business creation, and the ecosystem’s viability and resilience.

The session on ‘collaborative learning’ has been led by Sjoerd Romme from the Technical University of Eindhoven.

This summary presents all the main learning points and take-home-messages of the presentations given.

Monique Roso (Utrecht School of Economics, NL): presented the insights of her OECD study on entrepreneurial ecosystems and the specific role for governance in those systems. In the study, three Dutch cases were analysed and compared: Brainport, Twente and Amsterdam. In all cases, the knowledge triangle is at the heart of the system as human capital is a necessary input to entrepreneurship. However, new knowledge and talent need to be linked to innovation. And then skill, knowledge, talent and entrepreneurship do not automatically co-exist and align in effective ways, and nor does knowledge circulation. From the cases, only the Brainport case is a well-integrated entrepreneurial ecosystem. This because there was a clear leader in this case (the former mayor of Eindhoven). Although other specific regional (historical, social, geographical) contexts for governance also play a role. And finally, the cases showed that top-down steering and bottom up leadership should also be in balance. Thus, the study points out crucial elements to be aware of in clusters.

Mike Raunio (University of Tempere, FI): Open innovation platforms in education and research are replacing science parks and cluster based policies towards more agile, digitalized and user-driven processes of innovation. ‘’Open innovation platforms provide a new generation of co-creation spaces facilitating the interaction among research, education and innovation through a bottom-up process’’. He showed this through three Finnish cases: Demola, Mediapolis and the Campus Arena of Tampera. As this trend is new, many future academic and societal challenges remain. One of them being: How to improve the capabilities of public sectors to offer open data and to organize public procurement processes?

Danka Milojkovic (Cluster House, Balkan countries): spoke about the importance of cluster-based crossborder economic development in the Balkans. Connect, combine and cooperate are the main missions of the Cluster House. Danka Milojkovic: ‘’Clusters are so different, but they are part of the same family. Diversity of clusters is the biggest treasure of the global economic development.’’ In this historically complicated region, cluster-based crossborder cooperation aims to create ethical work environments for long-term employment in specific economic sectors.

This is a challenge, as Milojkovic jokingly said: ‘’There is a cluster phobia in the Balkans’’. Through meetings, surveys, a joint website, promotion, and business trips, the Cluster House aims to build trust. Trust between people, and trust in the cluster network. ‘’All seasoned with the special ingredient called love’’.

Harold Weffers (Technical University of Eindhoven, NL): talked about his lessons learned through an improved method to stimulate a more effective innovation between business, government, academia and citizens: the socalled quadruple helix setting. ‘’For meaningful innovation, all relevant actors are necessary. Bringing people together from diverse backgrounds leads to multiple perspectives and often even perspectives that were not imagined up front.

Innovation needs to be well-managed and requires explicit ‘ideation’ and ‘idea’-management.’’

Frederik Metzger (Steinbeis Innovation GmbH, DE): taught us in an interactive way how to use the cluster map. It is a comprehensive tool for strategic agenda setting. ‘’With our method we are able to respond to questions like: What are the internal competencies of a cluster initiative? What are the strategic fields to develop? And what are the fields to develop from the trends’ and opportunities point of view? These questions represent both internal- and external perspectives. Interrelating them enables for better decision making in clusters.

Sharon Dolmans (Technical University of Eindhoven, NL): gave a very clear speech on how institutional logic constrains alignment in innovation ecosystems, in her presentation called ‘One for all or all for one?’ She started with a nice quote from a consulting firm: ‘’Instead of struggling for an unattractive dry tea biscuit, organizations should collaborate to make the tea biscuit into a much more valuable cream cake’’. In other words, the performance of the innovation ecosystem as a whole is dependent on its individual stakeholders and vice versa. Failure of any key stakeholders to successfully contribute negatively impacts every organization in the system. How difficult it is to align all the stakeholders was shown through a case study of Dutch Electric Vehicle charging station ecosystems.

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The practical recommendations from the study are: 1) to become aware of differences in organizational characteristics, 2) to adopt a mind-set of openness to comprehend and learn, which is critical to achieve agreement and fruitful collaborations, 3) to try to communicate much more clearly what is wanted and expected of other participating organizations, and 4) to partner up with comparable organizations to align their messages. This might get clusters to getting from ‘one for all’ to ‘all for one’.

Carolina Castaldi (Technical University of Eindhoven, NL): closed the session with a presentation on organizational learning. “Recent calls for transforming the Netherlands into a ‘learning economy’ are highlighting the need to rethink the fundamental strategies to create new knowledge and go beyond the R&D-based model of innovation”. Many studies have researched successful clusters, though the study of Castaldi takes a different perspective. She was interested in the extent to which strategic learning goals actually translate into company-wide implementation of new practices. In the case study of the Brainport High Tech Software Cluster, the preliminary results highlight a gap between intended learning strategies and actual perceived implementation. Which emphasizes the importance to think about the question: How to make the Netherlands more of a ‘learning economy’? For those interested to know more about learning economies, Castaldi gave a book tip: ‘Creating a learning society’, by Joseph E. Stiglitz and Bruce C. Greenwald.

Cluster Governance (A3) The Cluster Evaluation session was led by Arnoud Lagendijk . Our competitive knowledge-based economy requires businesses and research centres to craft their position in global value and knowledge chains in a precise and visionary way. It also urges joining forces and explores possibilities for co-creation and co-production. Public authorities have engaged in various types of cluster policies and also in a whole range of policies that have a strong cluster element, such as smart specialisation policies, which have led to the establishment of economic boards, innovation campuses, Valley developments, etc. Yet key questions remain, notably how to select the best mix of cluster (and other) policies and how cluster policies should intersect with the strategic decision-making of clusters. Furthermore, there is a need to strengthen cluster policy and governance. Not only does this entail capacities to reduce transaction costs, shape 'club goods' and forge collaborative linkages, it also includes the search for 'economic intelligence' and its use in collective strategy-making. In view of the major challenges faced by clusters, this strand will zoom in on the role of cluster governance and its core determinants and practices.

Carlos Flores (UABC, MX): Carlos spoke about how upgrading an existing cluster is difficult and what challenges his ITC cluster has faced and is still facing today. Creating a culture of governance and collaboration has been difficult in Mexico. On top of that, the region didn’t have the human capital needed to suit the needs of the ITC firms. Now, 25 years later, the educational level of the working force has reached a critical mass. The triple helix constellation is also implemented now to a certain degree. However the region is still lacking a clear focus and strategy for the long term.

Evgeniy Kutsenko (Higher School of Economics, RU): Evgeniy spoke about the Russian national cluster policy, a policy that was adopted four years ago and spans 27 clusters. He stresses the fact that a cluster policy is not a social policy and that it, to a certain extent, is about picking the winners. Each cluster received funding relative to the size of the cluster. Evgeniy further stresses the importance of trust and reputation, as Russia is of such a size that it is hard to regulate to a certain degree. Having a good reputation, and a guarantee that the funds that are being provided through these subsides will be put to good use, is paramount. A strong region then helps contribute to strong clusters. A good reputation can in this case contribute to the development of a region. Moreover a good reputation leads to the path dependency of a region.

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Anastasiia Konstantynova (Orkestra, ES): Anastasiia spoke how cluster policies can be tuned to better match with regional RIS3 policies. She introduces the integrated policy mix method, a method that incorporates elements from both cluster and RIS3 policies. The method tries to strengthen the implementation of both policies by coapplying existing cluster policy instruments within RIS3 implementation. This should lead to joint integration across sectors and have a positive effect on the economic growth of the region.

Miranda Ebbekink (Radboud University, NL): The presentation of Miranda is about the shift from hardware to soft- and orgware. What does this mean? It means a shift to the soft side or the organisational side of effective cluster policy. The notion that a people-centric view is integral to the effectiveness of cluster policy. How do we see this in practice? There has been an explosion of cluster initiatives all around Europe. All these initiatives are spearheaded by people. These people are local anchors for society, civic entrepreneurs. That’s why you can’t have an effective policy without the presence of these key figures.

Byoungki Kim (Shiga University, JP): Byoungki spoke about the decline of agricultural effectiveness in Japan.

He further talks about how Japan sought to address this issue. They did this by a method called the 6th industrial revolution. This revolution calls for the adding of value at each stage in the value chain and transforms agriculture to a true business model. The model is then shown and explained the model helps fund itself and helps promote new joint ventures.

Marco Llinas (Bogota Chamber of Commerce, CO): Marco spoke about the rapid growth of the Colombian economy and the challenge they are facing. The challenge is the need for productivity and to solve it means keeping the economic growth sustainable. They are looking to do this by implementing the RIS3 framework. They have 3600 actors across 13 clusters and they are looking to use RIS3 as their main competitiveness agenda. The focus on the RIS3 should make the regional economy more streamlined and more focused while at the same time improving sustainability of the economy through prioritization and coordination of cluster initiatives.

Triin Nõlvak (Enterprise Estonia, EE): Triin begins with explaining how Estonia lacks an applied research institute such as TNO. The universities in the country are not willing to provide this research while the industry calls for such research to be conducted. She explains how Estonia’s centers are weak and fragmented. To combat this an entrepreneurial cooperation platform was established. The platform gives a forum to those who want to connect science with business. Now Estonia has several clusters keying off the platform and is taking steps in the right direction.

John Hobbs (Cork Institute of Technology, IE): Ireland doesn’t have an innovation policy, nor does it have a tradition to cooperation on innovation. But having a cluster organization can play an integral role in achieving and maintaining economic growth. V-Linc gives a visual presentation of the networked pipelines that exist within a cluster.

V-Linc helps to establish and maintain these pipelines through making the possibilities visible.

Main conclusions: The presentation and the discussion show how difficult it is to frame policy initiatives and how difficult it can be to influence them or even initiate them. As Miranda said: the importance of the human element is not to be understated in an effective cluster policy. Having too much of a top-down focus can lead to ineffective policies. For a policy to be successful there needs to be engagement from all parties involved. Evgeniy also touched upon the importance of trust in this process. Without trust you won’t have cooperation and without cooperation, you won’t have cluster initiatives. Moreover RIS3 is a mode of thinking, a way of looking at regional economics. This becomes ever apparent when looking at the model that Anastaciia proposes which attempts to combine cluster thinking and RIS3 to create a stronger region that is more embedded and more innovative. The Colombian example of how top-down thinking can be used to kick-start a revolution within a country is a good example of adopting best practice results. But the effectiveness of this policy is to some extent to be questioned. If Bogota embraces this mode of thinking that RIS3 promotes and the civil entrepreneurs carry and internalize this thinking, then it will be successful. If this does not happen, then the framework might make things only more complicated and more technocratic. In the end the most important takeaway is the importance of trust and establishing a culture which allows for cooperation and innovation.

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The role of the ‘orgware’ is not to be understated in this process, without key figures, the implementation of these policies might be less successful. But as Evgeniy shows identifying sectors from a top-down perspective can also be successful. In this example again, trust plays an important role and when this trust exist then doing business becomes easier. But the danger exists for a region to get locked in and become path dependant when focusing on a specific cluster too heavily.

THEME: CITIES & COMPETITIVENESS (C) Cities and metropolitan areas are increasingly seen as a key driver of value creation and a key partner in enhancing competitiveness. They are also the natural habitat for many clusters, providing a density of economic activities in related fields. This theme invites participants to reflect on the growing importance of cities, their significance for clusters and how clusters can help cities succeed.

What is the relevance of distance for clusters? What does 'area' mean in an increasingly global context? a How can clusters benefit from both their physical location (campuses, innovation districts, smart cities) and the global network society? a How can cities differentiate themselves with clusters, and can clusters contribute to the narrative of the city and region?

Failing with clusters (C3) Workshops that require input from the audience are usually very dynamic and this one was no exception. Even though the speakers had set up guidelines, the conversation often drifted from one topic to another once the audience got involved. This made for some very interesting discussions. The speakers (Sebastiaan Berendse, KplusV and Marloes Hoogerbrugge, Platform 31) laid the foundation for discussion by bringing up several pitfalls for clusters: one size fits all policies, government involvement, miscommunication and policy limitation by administrative borders.

The participants were quick to put their two cents in. On the topic of geographical limitations for clusters a difference between countries became evident. While in the Netherlands people are not willing to drive 4 hours (back and forth) to actively participate in a cluster, in Germany the same distance is not considered out of the ordinary.

The topic of political involvement certainly turned up the heat in the room. Several cluster managers expressed their discontent for career-hunting politicians who serve on a 4-5 year (term) basis as they are not interested in cluster facilitation which often takes up more time. The presenters who focus on cluster management in the Netherlands acknowledged that this is indeed a problem cluster managers here are facing. Once the audience got a hold of the conversation the topic switched from the added value of the cluster manager to the influence of public funding to the facilitation of start-ups in different phases of maturity.

The general discussion was not specifically targeted at cluster failing, but the speakers returned to this topic as soon as the discussions were done. It seems that determining whether a cluster has failed or not is often depending on the predefined rules on failure. This is not always as clear-cut as one would like due to a. lack of proper rules and b. lack of measurement tools. A participant and cluster manager from Nordrhein-Westfalen (DE) explained that critical mass is not always a guarantee for success. One of his former clusters failed due to the lack of a central hub. A dispersion of critical mass is, according to him, not a good basis for cluster growth. Other potential reasons for cluster failure that were mentioned by participants: failing of the cluster manager, arrogance and tunnel vision of cluster and retraction of public funding.

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Main conclusions: a a a a a

There is no one-size-fits-all for cluster policies The influence of the government should be limited to facilitation, not management Government funding is crucial for the initial phase of cluster formation There is a lack of predefined rules and measurements for cluster failure Clusters can fail due to several reasons; a large part of them is related to the performance of the cluster manager.

Understanding the dynamics of territory (C5) Frank Waeltring from Mesopartner was leading the interactive lecture; he aimed at providing us insight in the complex cluster dynamics within different territories. There was a lot of interaction which really helped the audience gain better insight in differentiation within the clusters. There are basically 4 regions: Area Area Area Area

1: Strong physical infrastructure and supporting institutions with growth 2: Strong physical infrastructure and supporting institutions with stagnation or decline 3: Weak physical infrastructure and supporting institutions with growth 4: Weak physical infrastructure and supporting institutions with stagnation or decline

All of these areas have specific characteristics. Subsequently, the areas are in thriving, declining, emerging or marginalized territory. Thriving and emerging territory need upgrading and coordination for promotion whereas declining and marginalized territory needs change.

Cities as driving force for competitiveness and clustering (C7) Mrs. Gloria Ferrer of The Cluster Competitiveness Group mentioned that The Competitiveness designs and implements cluster-based competitiveness policies that increase regional productivity and enhance local economic growth; as a boutique consultancy created with over 20 years of existence. The Group’s sole purpose has always been partnering with governments to foster innovation and competitiveness of the firms in their territories of operation. On mentioning the milestones of the Competitive Group Inc, the company has completed over 100 projects for regional governments across Europe and extending its scope further in both South America and Asia. The most fascinating case was the Barcelona Clúster Nàutic whereby over 200 Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) in a port area where a University was in place training nautical engineers yet there no single company in the marine industry in the area. After a thorough study, they worked on a proposal recommending the Technical University together with the government to revise the curriculum and focus their training programs on hospitality and leisure management so that the students would immediately add value to the city that was more in need of hospitality experts. Lucky enough the proposal was accepted and implemented and now the University and its graduate are of more value to the community and business development at large. Therefore, working closely with local government to realize the aim of clusters is very key.

Tamara Högler mainly went straight to the point mentioning that CyberForum is the leading European ICT hubs network that aims to provide knowledge and support to Start ups for competitiveness and growth. Looking forward to coordinating the Global Software Cluster Innovation conference in 2018, Tamara emphasized that as Eco-system network for innovation, CyberForum strives to build trust among members through connecting them, triggering their proactive cooperation while staying neutral at the same time for the startups to realize to grow and stay relevant. CyberForum wants to build a 5-quadruple helix cluster in 2 and a half years though the main challenges remain getting all the stakeholders involved (citizens and policy makers among others) but also developing sustainability attitude in knowledge transfer and long term cooperation.

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How to anchor thematic cluster in urban ecosystems (C8) Michiel Scheffer Vice Governor from the Dutch province of Gelderland spoke about the provincal cluster policy.

Gelderland is the largest Dutch province with 2 mln inhabitants, with the following clusters: cleantech cluster focussing on circular economy, health valley in the Arnhem-Nijmegen regio and food valley around Wageningen. Every cluster has a cluster organization, with representatives of the private and the public sector and the knowledge and educational organizations.

The cluster policy of the province is a long lasting cluster support progam focussing on the enterprises to help them bringing new ideas forward, ultimately to the market, additionally to the reserach and development budgets of National Policies. The province applies different instruments as subsidies and revolving fund, next to participation by a regional participation Fund. An important challenge is to make a connection with manufacturing, to enlarge the outreach of clusters to a broader group of enterprises.

Organizing urban systems for competitive advantage (C9) The speakers of this session, attended by business executives, local government workers and researchers, were Natasha Sena of Amsterdam Institute/ Alterra Wageningen University & Research and Remco Kranendonk , Wageningen UR both from the Netherlands. The case discussed involved the role of Economic Boards for the Urban Challenges termed as urbanization in crisis.

Natasha Sena from Amsterdam Institute for Advanced Metropolitan Solutions stated in her key notes that the main reason of bringing together the Academia with Private and public partners in urbanization crisis is come up with a more prosperous city which is smart, sustainable, resilient and just. The mission of the Amsterdam Economic Board is to sustainably enhance the prosperity and well-being of the Amsterdam Metropolitan Area (AMA). To achieve this they work together with the business world, governmental agencies and knowledge institutes, focussing on collaboration, innovation and growth.

AMS focuses on five interrelated urban challenges which bear relevance to urban issues around the world: a Circular Economy: in 2025 AMA, will be leader in the field of circular economy a Digital Connectivity: in 2025 AMA will be the most important location in Europe for data-driven innovation a Health: in 2025 inhabitants of AMA will have gained two healthy years in their life-span a Mobility: in 2025 urban transport in the AMA will be emission free a Jobs of the Future: in 2025 the AMA will have the most adaptive and appealing labour market of Europe.

AMS is a newly institute raised to contribute to the Amsterdam regional innovation challenges on innovative solutions for urban problems. AMS will develop a deep understanding of the city – sense the city -, design solutions for its challenges, and integrate these into the city. In that, Amsterdam is its home base and test bed. Amsterdam will be the AMS living lab to develop and test these metropolitan solutions – involving the Amsterdam citizens as testers, users and co-creators.

On the other hand, Mr. Remco Kranendonk pointed out that although the economic boards of cities like Eindhoven and Utrecht among others have an apparently small role in the overall regional development like the EU, they play an incredibly important role in spearheading regional innovative solutions for the grand challenges and the Urban Agenda which is key for development. After the insightful presentation of Natasha and Remco, the participants came up together to think and reflect on their profiles and expertise, find out what are some of the common challenges clusters encounter in urban context, who should be involved fist as far as stakeholders are concerned.

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THEME: MODERN CLUSTER POLICY (P) A decade of cluster-based policies has generated a rich set of experiences of what works, and what does not. It has also revealed that what is called cluster policy is, in reality, a highly heterogeneous set of policies and programmes implemented in different locations. Take stock through this theme of what we have learned about effective ways to organise cluster policies. a

a

a

What is the best way for policy makers to support clusters; what are do’s and don’ts?

What are proper instruments?

What roles can government assume? What is the most appropriate governance level: local/ city, regional or national? Is there the risk of excessive top-down politics?

How can policy encourage clusters to address societal challenges?

Enhancing growth from an EU perspective (P1) This session was kicked off by Michel Catinat of the EC Directorate-General for Internal Market, Industry, Entrepreneurship and SME’s. He painted a very positive picture of the influence that clusters can have on the economy.

In his own words “everything is positive”. During the recent crisis employment in clusters still grew while non cluster employment shrank.

The EU cluster policy has four focus areas: creating new sources of growth and new industrial strengths, interregional cooperation and smart specialisation, support for the internationalisation of EU firms through clusters and to support excellence in cluster management. To support excellence a gold, silver and bronze label are currently used. The activities on internationalisation are going so well at the moment that there is no reason to streamline this right now, according to Catinat. Also a lot of the activities revolve around matchmaking events to bring the different SME’s together.

The second half of this session was presented by Jeroen Heijs of the Dutch Ministry of Economic Affairs. He explained that the Dutch approach consists of 3 complementary layers: framework conditions (the breeding ground) the ecosphere (the forest) and cluster organisation (the watering can). Setting up these conditions takes time and nurturing them has to be done carefully so they grow. Destroying them is very easy. These conditions can be summed up as following for the 3 layers. Vital infrastructure, high quality education and efficient law and government for the breeding ground. The forest is made up of geographically approximate companies and organisations that share commonalities and externalities. And the watering can consists of triple helix cluster organisations, good organisational capacity and knowledge development and exchange. Organisational excellence, connectivity and cooperation are the fields where the Ministry of Economic Affairs sees a lot evidence where the EU is doing the right things.

In the Q&A session a couple of questions came up that deserve mentioning here. When asked what the ministries position on cluster excellence in the Netherlands was Heijs explained that the national policies were pulled back to give the regions space. They are currently reviewing if this was the correct decision or not. When asked if there was room for industrial development without disturbing the bottom up character the answer was yes. “this is how the ecosystem works. There is a policy role”. And when asked if they were currently working on cluster policy excellence the answer was “no but we are trying to improve”.

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Scotland’s next chapter (P2) For this session Linda Hanna from Scottish Enterprise asked the participants to join in a brainstorming session to provide insights into the challenges that Scotland faces. The two groups were divided over two tables and given a question to work on. How can Scotland best work to connect their strongest clusters? and: What are the critical factors that are needed to underpin sustainable models of sector leadership?

Scottish Enterprise was present at TCI because they want to start with a new action plan for their clusters. A lot of choices and trade-offs have to be made. Will they go with a newer approach that are more disruptive or with older more incremental approaches?

Linda Hanna described this dilemma by asking the attendees two questions: How do we scale up? And how do we connect our clusters to markets? One of the first lessons that came from one of the groups was that these challenges are around for clusters big and small. Companies can be competitive by adjusting their business models to the current situation or as one participant put it “never waste a good crisis, a lot of opportunities can be found there�. Another main point is that it is essential for cluster development to invest resources to find the right cluster manager. This helps to keep focus and to keep initiative open. A good cluster manager will also help to find new models suitable for your cluster and to see what should get priority. What also came forward multiple times was that it is very important to look at what happens on the edges of clusters. This is where different sectors meet and where innovation happens. If you pick the right companies within clusters with enough ambition a lot of steps can be taken to improve interconnectivity. Lastly, a final tip from one of the participants was of a more practical nature. Simple tricks like how you set up a meeting room can do wonders for your cluster development. A large room with food, tables but no chairs will force people to move around and they will interact a lot more with each other. More connections are made this way.

Towards a green transformation (P3) The session was led by two speakers from Mesopartners from which Ulrich Harmes-Liedtke was one of them.

The first discussion in the section was about what the definition of Green Transformation is. Among attendees there were different point of views of what green transformation is. However, a consensus was reached that Green Transformation is a general normative concept. The discussion proceeded further to talk about how the Green Transformation movement came to be and in what form it takes place. It was mentioned in the discussion that Green Transformation can be in a form of regulation, cleaner production, and a form of a business opportunity.

It was discussed that it is important to be Green, but also remain competitive in the business point of view. The subsequent discussion was about how the concept of Green Transformation shaped the work with clusters. There was a discussion about what portion of the stakeholders are already implementing cluster in Green Transformation, view Clusters in Green Transformation as a future opportunity, or view clusters as non-influential towards Green Transformation. The discussion concluded that for most stakeholders, clusters are already in place in the Green Transformation and a future opportunity. Mesopartners provide a of tool to analyse the challenges and opportunities of clusters in the Green Transformation movement using the Systemic Competitiveness Level Model, which include the meta, macro, meso, and micro levels. Was simulation through a case study using different cases from the participants.

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A taste of worldwide cluster approaches (P4) Andres Guimon (ES) asked how can cluster initiatives influence national policy? Andres shed some light on how the Mexican government that has been able to influence national policy, where the real money is, through the success of smaller clusters in Mexico. According to him, cluster policy should not be seen as a single silo but rather as an overseeing policy. For the implication of this policy there is a need for a strong champion in the government who advocates for the cluster polices. Mexico has this champion in Ildefonso Guajardo, the Secretary of Economy.

Extensive work needs to be done close to the companies and the learnings should be used to improve the national and regional policies. An example of this success is the app that was developed (with the WUR) to improve post-harvesting in Mexico.

Gongi Neila (TN) explained that Tunisia, who mainly relies on export, has decided to start initiatives in smart specialization. The initiatives to form incubators and clusters come from the many tech-parks present in the country.

The Tunisian clusters are initiatives of the tech-parks but are not merged together. Companies residing in one tech parks can join the cluster residing at another tech-park. Tunisia has some trouble however with big successful corporations that do not want to join the national clusters as they have most of their business abroad. Most of the successful national companies however are joined in the national and regional clusters.

A lot of the information that Rocio Prado (MX) provided overlaps the information provided earlier by Andres.

She focused on the specific region of Puebla, Mexico to illustrate how clusters can help regions that are lacking in development. Puebla was one of the least progressive regions in Mexico in GDP increase. Focussing on the automotive industry, she made clear how regional development can attract business even across borders (USA).

An interesting discussion follows as Andres pointed out that the actual production of automobiles is becoming significantly less profitable.

Guenwoo Ryu (KR) mainly discussed the academic side of cluster policy. He analysed findings from Michael Porter and used these findings to elaborate on the situation in South Korea. He reasoned that the use of historical data is a good way to gain inspiration. Traditional clusters should be transformed into traded clusters with a futuristic vision: “green” (sustainable) development and anti-corruption. By creating industrial parks that highly regard these values it is possible to share knowledge with mini clusters to increase creativity and innovation.

Main conclusions: a Successful cluster initiatives with a strong champion can influence national policies a Industries can initiate successful clusters with additional help of the government a Clusters can help development in regions, even or especially those that are lacking in development

Re-aligning clusters to policy priorities (P5) Eight people from various countries visited the session of Mr Sebastiaan Berendse (KplusV). He introduced himself and explained the purpose of this session questioning: What to do when government (funding) is involved?

His own experience: he started (wit KIEM) as a network but growed to a cluster organization with funding from the government. Immediately the government told what they had to do and where to focus on. Having companies in the driving seats, has been very hard the last years because of the crisis. They had to make the companies setting the agenda. A participant from Belgium said that they have contracts for funding clusters of 50%. They have to make goals and explain how they want to reach those goals. Government can help the clusters organizing. They compare the clusters to see who gets the funded by most added value and most collaborating companies. A participant from Basque Country explains that their cluster associations has to make a strategic-plan/action plan and the funding will be based on their action plan. Challenge: It’s harder for smaller clusters to get funding based on their action plan.

‘Most important: you have to mobilize the network it self’. A participant from Botswana said that it is very valuable to listen to each other during the TCI conference so you can learn and go further next year in Bogota.

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Dutch Clusters on Stage (P6) Short session by Ingrid Coninx from Alterra WUR. She gave the floor to Hans Rijnten from the Economic Board Utrecht (EBU). The EBU focusses on connecting sectors with each other to rise to challenges and find new economic opportunities. These new connections of companies, government and academia then help further economic growth, job creation and increase the market share of SME’s in Utrecht. Hans Rijnten told how EBU’s strategy is dominated by mega trends in society. The main ones EBU’s focusses on are climate change as an initiator of clusters, the ageing population and digitalisation. The triple helix approach is used for all of these by the EBU. These three core units of activity are described by the EBU in their regional agenda 2013-2020 as Green, Healthy and Smart. EBU’s strategic agenda also reflects this with its focus on green economy, life sciences & health and service innovation. Societal challenges in these fields should be seen as economic opportunities. Projects that fit the regional agenda have to be scalable, need private commitment and need to reinforce the profile of the region. This approach has been quite successful for the EBU. The monetary force multiplier of their co-financing approach had some significant results.

Every ¤1.- they invest has to be matched by at least ¤4.- for the EBU projects. This resulted that the initial investment of ¤5.8 million by the various partners leads to a spin of economic gain of ¤145 million for the region.

The challenging question of EBU to the TCI expert James Wilson was: How can the national government that has policies that are oriented to Topsectors, better connect with more integrated regional challenges? James Wilson advised to create a space between regional and national policymakers where regions meet, where can be discussed what is happening in different regions and where the collaboration and the coordination of the developments at the regional level should be discussed with national policies. By doing so, the national policy instruments can enforce regional development in a more optimal way. The advice was to have this ‘space’ at high political/policy level (heads of programs), interdepartmental and multi level.

The second part was presented by Mirjam Mol, the director of Pivot Park in Oss, focussing on pharmaceutical development. Pivot Park is located here because Oss has a very long history in the pharmaceutical industry and thus all the infrastructure was already in place. Pivot Park provides R&D services or how Mirjam describes it: “We deliver the R&D equipment and the people who know how it works”. The unique core facilities that they provide at Pivot Park are amongst other things two pilot plants, an ultra high throughput screening facility with compound collection and modern equipment which is needed for biological, chemical and analytical lab research. “The Pivot Park ecosystem is built around the R&D” in Mirjams own words. And an ecosystem like this has a lot of benefits including cost reduction, inspiration by interaction, additional opportunities for collaboration and the strong position it has in the regional knowledge infrastructure. Answer to the challenging question of Pivot Park by the expert: close the gap between science and practice by using PhD students to collaborate on projects.

Evaluation in Nordic Countries (P7) Cluster evaluation is a great challenge, which is approached by Nordic countries, as Sweden, Denmark and Norway so far. In this session, these countries were represented by Göran Andersson, Vinnova (SE), Morten Solgaard Thomsen, Danish Agency for Science, Technology and Innovation (DK), Knut Senneseth, Innovation Norway (NO) and Moa Eklund, Vinnova (SE). Cluster programs that have at its heart strategic collaboration between countries, bottom-up processes, regional innovation system and an infrastructure to bridge between SMEs and knowledge institutions. The triple helix leadership is an important approach, based on companies, academia and politics. One important challenge is that different programs need to be integrated in one evaluation in order to understand the interaction of existing and new relations within the cluster, within the region and outside the region.

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No innovation can occur without collaboration, as it creates ideas and access to partners and therefore increases performance.

A major challenge is to evaluate in a more systematic way. Thereby, long-term effects can be communicated to politicians. Therefore, a mix method of survey data and big data is integrated to ensure a holistic evaluation. For further discussion, the comparison to control groups and the evaluation of soft settings were discussed. Soft settings need to be elaborated against hard settings. The question is whether storytelling can help to shape the evaluation to capture soft factors. Also, the importance of connections needs more elaboration, as it can grow in something greater and in something strategic. Overall, communication is crucial, in the sense of setting expectations, and opening opportunities to politicians. However, can results also be communicated in softer ways?

Today’s and tomorrow’s cluster approach (P8) Younger and older cluster experts (being: Alberto Pezzi, ACCIÓ (ES), Simone Hagenauer, The Business Agency of Lower Austria (AT) and David Fernández Terreros, SPRI Basque Country Business Development Agency (ES)) shared insights. How does the life cycle of a cluster looks like? So far, the cluster approach grew from a smaller scope to a policy framework. Shared lessons learned are the importance of trust, the importance of monitoring, the continuous learning by doing and that the key is formed by people and the dynamic evolution. The larger picture is crucial to take into account, where industries interrelate and opportunities for collaboration arise.

Essential is the relevance for the region and not only for one specific company; then, topics around can be created.

The resilience of clusters under the pressure of the economic crisis was mentioned and intensively discussed.

Whereas some clusters disappeared, others merged and some particularly “boomed”, due to strategic investments.

Future trends will likely involve cross-cluster-cooperation’s, whereby digitalisation is one major topic. Currently, borders between cluster initiatives are blurring. However, what is the right balance for the future? A policy whereby competitiveness is strengthened and not overregulated.

Cluster strengthening macro-regional collaboration (P10) This session gave us two great examples of what clusters can do to strengthen collaboration in a macro-region: the Great Lakes region in North America and the Baltic Sea Region in Europe. Emily Wise, Consultant and Research Fellow at IEC and Lund University, kicked off the meeting by describing how clusters as a policy tool aim to bridge gaps and build collaborative strength within the regional innovation systems. Seven gaps in the regional innovation system are the global market gap, the government gap, the research gap, the gap between firms, the education gap, the capital gap and the gap between clusters.

After this introduction Christopher Mack and Saad Usmani from the Institute for Competitiveness &Prosperity introduced the Great Lakes region. It is economically a very integrated region where manufacturing clusters are in decline. The two major sectors with opportunities for cluster development are the automotive industry and the water sector. The economic connectivity so far has been driven by the industry and most of the challenges for the region are also related to the industry present there. For instance optimizing the performance of the region’s transportation network and developing, attracting and retaining talented workers. Questions from the audience that were raised further looked into the issues of what the right kind of intermediaries can be for projects like this (top-down or at the operational level) and if the attitude of the major companies can be describe as competition or collaboration.

After this question Hans Henrik Lomholt and Merete Daniel Nielsen informed about the situation in the Baltic region. The EU strategy for the Baltic Sea Region (EUSBSR) has three focal points: Saving the Sea, Connecting the region and increasing prosperity. There is a long history of cooperation amongst the eight EU member states in addressing these three communal issues. The EUSBSR aims to leverage clusters to support SME internationalization. Lack of time to do so is a big obstacle for SME’s and EUSBSR helps to fix this. They do so by making coordinated calls, organise cluster matchmaking events and organize capacity building/learning activities.

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Near the end of the session Emily Wise summed up the lessons learned by saying “these are a lot of words”. The key lessons were that a simple and pragmatic approach is needed for operationalization that has to be combined with an informal and collegial atmosphere. Maybe the most important element for this type of approach to be successful is a large level of personal commitment. Commitment can lead to a change in the role of being a public employee. A project like this should allow for room for this. To conclude the session the main challenges going forward for this type of projects were mentioned. Achieving better alignment between policy partners, broadening the base of policy partners, achieving higher levels of connectivity to regional and European level smart specialisation platforms and investments and developing long-term commitment to these transnational efforts. Rising to these challenges will make sure that cooperation within these regions will reach new heights.

Adapting cluster policies for S3 (P11) Juan Domingo Olabarri presented the Experiences from CLUSTERS3 project, focussing on the adaptation of cluster policies for RIS 3. The EC model for RIS 3 challenges Steps to RIS3 – model by Aranguren & Wilson. A SWOT analysis will be applied, with the following aspects: Prioritization, Integrated policy mixes (none of the region), Smart evidence policy making, Multi-level governance, Cross-border dimension (most regions), Sustainable stakeholder engagement (all regions). From the insights the regions are being supported to develop an integrated policy mix (different authorities put in place different instruments without coordination) and arrive to multilevel governance (coordination with national, regional and local initiatives). This project will take place with sustainable stakeholder’s involvement.

Simone Hagenauer presented the Interreg Europe Clusterix 2.0 project, with partners in different regions with different cultures and levels. Ultimate challenge: getting the linkage between regions and national cluster programs.

The following challenges are addressed for partner regions (all through clusters): a How do we implement our joint strategy? Governance a What are we good in? Regional profile a Strategic Partnerships a New value chains, because of rapid change a New business/innovation models Steps taken in the project. 1) Mutual understanding – Cluster policy peer review. Good for external view and helps to understand the issues in different regions. 2) Monitoring and using this for steering the policy – lots of different approaches, valued differently, monitoring could be used to catch success stories over time, think carefully what you want to reach, how clusters can contribute and how you can measure it. 3) Collect good practice cases This session made clear that cluster concepts and cluster policies are actively explored and applied in Interreg Europe projects, in order to enhance RIS3 performance in EU regions. Many regions are searching for good approaches and want to learn and to partner in EU consortia.

THEME: MANAGING LEARNING NETWORKS (N) For organisations and clusters to stay competitive in the ever-accelerating cycles of innovation, they need to be adaptive, able to respond effectively to changes, absorb knowledge and form new collaboration structures. This theme explores learning and networking issues for clusters. a a a

How do clusters (their organisations and people) form new collaborative structures?

How can clusters organise cross-sectoral and cross-cluster cooperation?

How can clusters facilitate learning capacity; can they use living labs and healthy start-up ecosystems as learning environments?

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Cluster manager as civic entrepreneur (N1) ‘Cross the line’ – uncovering the crucially of civic entrepreneurs by Miranda Ebbekink , Radboud University & Lysias Consulting Group will be relevant when software and orgware of clusters and regional innovation becomes more important. Focus should not be solely on hardware, but on software and orgware as well. Acknowledgement of cluster leadership is important, but still fairly unknown. No polished theory yet.

Objectives of cluster leadership: a Create awareness (importance of making shift to soft and orgware) a Learn and be able to identify certain type of leaders (civic entrepreneurs) a Share experiences and best practices

Group’s opinion on cluster leadership and its Response Miranda Ebbekink common obstacles, struggles etc. a Lack of 1 common language Turning good intentions into action a Fast >> long term perspective Being leader doesn’t mean you have actual power a Lack of trust Different languages (communication) a Different performance indicators What trends or developments are relevant to a cluster (involvement/decision making) a Different goals Co-production a Continuity of leadership Have to get out and talk to people, but often also invisible work a Need to be respected in a sector Don’t panic, organize (identity) a Difference goal intentions and actual commitment Cluster not all about redirecting, also about serendipity a Wide variety in stakeholders Turning good intentions into action (hard to find common grounds) In the session a ‘cross the line’ exercise took place. Some listed below. a All agree: sometimes you win, sometimes you learn. And, part of clustering success is figuring out how to embed co-creation principles as a leitmotif in one’s organizational culture. a Majority agrees: 1) having the right people on board is the recipe for success. 2) true leaders don’t create ] followers, they create more leaders.3) In becoming an influential leader, personal competences will trump position and authority (competences: making connections, creativity, passion, knowledge, storytelling, people skills, reliability, empathetic, perseverance). a Majority disagrees: 1) I can identify those who act as cluster leaders in the cluster I’m associated with.

2) the leader should have the knowledge (know what happens, in technology, emotional etc.). 3) the way to institutional change is by means of silent revolution, not a frontal assault.

Leveraging knowledge for firms and clusters (N2) Mr. Shawn Cunningham talked about the different ways information flows between universities, companies, government and other parties. He quickly made the distinction between tacit and tangible knowledge which spurt on a lot of discussion about the definition of tacit knowledge. He made the point that it’s easy to share tangible knowledge

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because one can write it down and pass it on, so it is more often shared. Tacit knowledge on the other hand is often hard to share because it is very reliant on personal experience and talent and cannot be easily passed down.

He then went on to talk about how companies can promote growth and innovation by combining different sources of knowledge. He talked about the amazing results of one company that combined people who had a background in psychology with engineers to tackle a problem. His main message was that sharing knowledge openly and cooperation between fields are key for innovation.

Intercontinental cluster collaboration (N4.1) Sara Medina told about the Society Portuguese Innovation (SPI), an international knowledge-management consultancy that functions as an interface and provides services to public and private clients (f.e. business incubators, science parks and universities). SPI has offices around the world. SPI follows the cluster definition of Porter, World Bank and EC. The benefits of clusters are the following: a Stimulation of innovation a Fostering economic development a Enhanced productivity a Efficient use of scarce resources a Commercialization of technology a Creation of new business a Stimulate foreign direct investment

SPI supports internationalization and helps finding the right partners in different markets. Examples of EU matchmaking missions for SME internationalization through clusters are: Mission for growth in China, European cluster conference in Brussels, Milan expo 2015. The benefits of (events/missions for) cluster matchmaking and transnational cluster collaboration are: Network building and new collaboration in different fields

Intercontinental cluster collaboration: how to get started?

(N4.2) In this half an hour session, a 101 questions were raised by Nicolai Rottbøll, CEO of the Quercus Group, Denmark.

What is the business case in cluster internationalisation? What are the opportunities? What are the value propositions?

How do you help clusters to develop? What are concrete tools to use? But the starting question for cluster managers should always be: Why? So in the case of internationalisation the question becomes: why going international? The tool that the Quercus Group is using in their cluster-to-cluster projects in Singapore, India and Kenya is the NABC. An acronym that, again, contains questions. NABC stands for: Need? Approach? Benefit? Competition? If these answers are well considered, cluster managers may understand the interests and readiness of member companies to participate. Successful cluster internationalisation can be established as people within the clusters will take initiative. Nicolai Rottbøll: ‘’That is my main conclusion: taking it from push to pull’’.

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Understanding internationalisation (N6) The session started with a presentation of an excellent example of international clusters of Cluster Excellence Denmark, by Kaspar Nielsen. Cluster Excellence Denmark works with over 45 clusters and innovative networks and tries to contribute to professionalization and internationalisation of Danish clusters. They did a lot of research on cluster development, and their reports are available for free on their website. The take-home message of this session was about the five phases of strategic cluster internationalisation: 1) Understand your cluster (understand the members needs and wishes; and choose the right markets and technologies).

2) Get a grip of the competences, stakeholders and finances (have the right competences within the cluster management; create an overview of the stakeholders; manage finances).

3) evelop your international strategy (coordinate the strategy with the overall cluster strategy; create support for the strategy; and do not forget milestones).

4) Implement the strategy (develop mutual trust; implement an action plan; measure the successes; and communicate about it).

5) Sustain and develop network and services (sustain and develop both your international network and services; and develop a global network).

Lucia Seel asked: “Is your cluster already a member of the European Cluster Collaboration Platform?” The European Cluster Collaboration Platform can help with some of these internationalisation phases. The ECCP is only a few months in business, but the audience responded with amazement: it is astonishing what the Platform has achieved so far, and it is a very practical and easy tool for cluster managers. One of the workshop participants reacted: “I feel inspired because I see benefits that I do not have access to at the moment”. Lucia Seel mentioned numerous advantages. A few examples: the Platform is the only one in the world to organize cluster matchmaking events with an international focus. You can find relevant partners, or they can find you. And the Platform has funding available to support cluster development. Marc Pattison (ECCP and Inno TDS): “The website serves as a business card for clusters”. It is a trustful Platform. Lucia Seel: “It is a very little effort to but to show what you as a cluster can do.” See: http://www.clustercollaboration.eu/

Cluster governance and leadership (N7) This session was for Joan Marti and Joop van Bergen, moderated by Vincent Dugre. Governance is key for making the right strategic choices and brings them to operation: a Strategic Analysis: Understanding the cluster (identify the leader) a Strategic Change Process: Changing the strategy in the right direction a Governance: Establishing Government (have a leader in mind and set up cluster) a Governance: Guarantying sustainability (select cluster manager) >> Through all steps it is important to identify and ultimately select the leader A crucial question is how to pick a leader? A leader is someone who swims against the streaming. They break the conventional wisdom, want to be a leader and willing to lead, and show resilience (they try harder). It is important to first have the people and then develop a strategy. Next to that communality is important, where participants have a sense of belonging, and feel ‘part of the tribe’, having collective goals. The cluster chairman leads a team of leaders (10 of 15 people in the board are leaders as well), has a Strategic vision and knows where to go. The chairman coaches and helps and provides own visibility to others. The cluster chairman should not have a too big ego, is no team player and shouldn’t be a lobbyist.

Catalan model is being presented. They have a 2 year rotation chairman, who is coached to act as chairmen, gives training to the boards (for clusters), comes from a public agency, and does not have a voting right. The chairman aligns clusters strategy to cluster policy. Compromise versus conviction: public and private sectors should work together.

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Cluster development in small, remote regions (N8) Iffor Ffowcs-Williams (Cluster Navigators Ltd, New Zealand) took the participants with all the knowledge gained throughout the TCI and let everybody apply it to their own region. Participants came from remote or rural areas in Alaska, Botswana, Cyprus, and Norway (amongst others). In small working groups, the main challenges for cluster developments in remote regions were determined. Challenges for cluster developments in remote regions are: establishing a triple helix, trust building, communicating, and a lack of infrastructure, getting to the critical mass, the distant geography, and acquiring knowledge. “Even in small communities, do not dream of what you have not got. Understand what you already have”, commented Iffor Ffowcs-Williams. “Find the low hanging fruit”. For example, teachers in rural communities often serve as knowledge brokers. And it is relatively easy to connect with them. From the presentations of the small working groups, it was understood how important it is in remote areas for people to meet. This can be done by organizing lunch to lunch meetings, as they do at Innovation Norway. Or to just take a bus together and visit other initiatives in the area. Or to bring someone in, and organize an event around this. In sum: “Find excuses in your region to bring people together and it will help your cluster to make changes.“

An expert perspective on new Brainport clusters (N9) Merete Daniel Nielsen, Ewit Roos and Ruud van Iwaarden hosted a working session, and they presented the topic: ‘’an expert perspective on new Brainport clusters’’. Ewit Roos provided insights into the ecosystem Photon Delta, which is an integrated photonics cluster. This ecosystem is originated by companies and is in service for the companies to create an engine of innovation. As said by Ewit: “to make a difference in the world, we need to collaborate, innovate and deal with this exponential growth in this industry and need to boost the speed of innovation. Therefore we have created the ecosystem Photon Delta.” There are a lot of underlying mechanisms in an ecosystem; you have to facilitate trust, which involves a lot of communication and marketing. An organization like Photon Delta, who is working on behalf of the companies, needs its own grounds for existence. That is the only way to make it survive. There is a big difference between clusters initiated by the government and clusters that have been started by companies. Clusters started by companies have a different culture, and are especially more result and output driven. The ecosystem Photon Delta has grown quickly. As Ewit Roos said: “Companies want to get involved because we have the knowledge base, and we have the knowledge base because we have the companies”. You have to create an engine of innovation. He also pointed out that Photon Delta is in the fortunate situation that they are located in the Brainport region, where companies are used to that kind of thinking. Some tips and tricks that were given about how to make a cluster work: a Have an immediate connection to the board of the University a Have several channels through which you can communicate issues if necessary a You need a long term vision.

Supporting innovation environments: do’s and don’ts (N11) Otto Raspe (PBL Environmental Assessment Agency, the Netherlands) presented about supporting innovation environments. In a stunning graphical representation of an innovation garden, he discussed six key elements of successful innovation districts: governance, branding, global pipelines, a local buzz, urbanity and entrepreneurial dynamism. “In the garden of innovation, beekeepers, gardeners and biologists closely collaborate to achieve the most optimal ecosystem”: a metaphor for the crucial triple-helix collaboration related to the element of governance. Related to branding, he discussed that innovation clusters should be a well-known fact to attract the most promising talent and innovation companies, investors and customers. External linkages will be established through global pipelines: to attract people, funding or to exchange knowledge. At the same time, face-to-face encounters should be stimulated.

If an innovation cluster is “buzzing”, people will meet, which is the basis for new products and services. That is why a buzzing “garden” profits from urban elements: cultural facilities and a living environment that is attractive and will contribute to interaction.

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Finally, “in the garden of innovation, all actors are constantly busy”. In other words, “a successful innovation district has an ever-present spirit of entrepreneurship”. So in fact, the presentation is a useful tool for cluster makers to see on which elements can be improved.

The future of leadership and organizational development in clusters (N12) Merete Daniel Nielsen and Klaus Haasis hosted a working session and presented the topic: ‘the future of leadership and organizational development in clusters’. This working session was about learning from each other about how you let collaboration between clusters happen. How can we collaborate on this issue over the next months and create something that will last until the next conference. There were about 30 participants present, whose expectations were very wide spread. Some people were new to the subject and just wanted to gather more information about how to be a cluster manager, and how to lead a growing cluster. Other participants were more familiar with clusters and had expectations that were more in depth to the subject: What is the role of local governments within clusters? How do you set up a learning platform? Is being an entrepreneur applicable to clusters?

Merete shared a few business models regarding clusters. One of which is the merger model, which shows a large cluster, with smaller sub clusters. It turns out that the clusters in Denmark are on a whole different scale than in the Netherlands. The large clusters include about 300 companies; the smaller clusters include about 100 companies.

Compared to the Netherlands: our largest cluster consists of about 90 companies. A discussion started about whether or not it was good to have sub clusters within a large cluster. Which cluster is in the lead? Is there even a cluster in the lead? Why is it called a cluster instead of a network where everyone is equal? Many of the participants were interested to keep discussing the subject and give each other ideas and information. The decision was made that there was going to be a LinkedIn group for the participants that were interested to go on in this field, or perhaps even create an event next year. As said by Klaus: it is not about management, but about creating something. How do we create movement?

Overall feedback from the participants: a “I’m really happy we can start working together and reflect, and that this day did not just end with a list of notes from today’s workshop”. a “Other people live in other realities and it is good to understand that they do”. a “I expected to be given more insights, but I feel more motivated now instead of when I just receive insights.”

Team effectiveness (NS1) Dick Otter & John Ogink introduced in this Soft Skills Lab the relevance of personal types in implementation of clusters. They explained how you can profit from diversity in your team or cluster. Relevance of personal types in implementation of clusters – profit from diversity in your team or cluster. The session started by the personal proximity in features, in traits and in attitude. It is not only about competences, it is also important to look at personality.

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Four types can be distinguished.

1. Guardian (stability, step-by-step, concrete) 2. Artisan (pragmatic, freedom, action) 3. Idealist (sinful, possibilities, enthusiasm) 4. Rationalist (logic, competence, strategy) People are different, your preferences are determined from birth. How are they relevant with implementation in clusters? Then an exercise started ‘pulling the rope’. All determine which personality type you are and pull the rope to your personality. From united to separate and in competition with each other. This can be seen as a metaphor to clusters; a cluster contains companies and persons with different personalities and struggles. Within a cluster all companies have different goals and 1 common goal. And a discussion took place: in what way you can innovate as fast as you can by using the different personalities? Which personality is most successful in different phases of the innovation process?

The following conclusion could be made, related to the order in the innovation process: 1. Idealist – ideas 2. Rationalist – logic / analytic mind 3. Artisan – planning / concretization / impact / realization 4. Guardian – implementation >> Lessons learnt: Innovation should be fun: Trust spurs innovation.

And: So why the knot couldn’t hit the floor? Everyone has to participate, but not everyone has to lead all the time. Innovation stops if you don’t participate. >> ‘You always have a role to play, but not as much all the time. Observe different types in your company or cluster and act on it’.

Group dynamics in multiparty collaboration (NS2) This Soft Skills Lab session started by Rosi Dhaenens discussing about how the attendees view group dynamics.

She then followed it up with showing that sometimes there are agents within a group discussion that are undesirable. Rosi mentioned, “If a conflict goes too long, there will be autonomic conflict dynamic”, which means that the conflict becomes institutionalized in the group that even if the conflicting agent is not present, the conflict will still be present.

It was explained how within a discussion, there are two different dimensions that come to play. The first dimension is the visible dimension which was represented by a smooth sine curve; this dimension represents what can be seen in the group discussion, and it is usually easily observable. The second dimension is the underground dimension which was represented by a chaotic wave spectrum; this dimension represents what cannot be seen in the group discussion which includes the different things going on in each participant’s thoughts. It was mentioned that the underground dynamics of the group can be changed by an intervention (e.g. the unsuspected presence of a CEO in a meeting). It was discussed that the ideal dimension is to have the underground dynamics of the group as synchronized as possible to the visible dynamics. But often, the problem is that there is very little information to what are the intervention and the trend of the underground dynamics itself. The challenge is how to achieve an acceptable solution by every party. However, a paradox in these attempts is the questions: “How can I belong to the group without losing my identity? And how can I hold my identity without fear of being excluded from the group?” As there is always a give and get for each parties in a group discussion, solving this problem is a challenging process.

THEME: FOOD CLUSTERS (F) The urgent challenge for food security demands changes in the way the chain is organised. Clusters are a potential way to sustainably develop the sector, increasing efficiency and competitiveness.

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However, food clusters often lack awareness of the significance they can have on the environment around them. a How can food clusters benefit from aspects like supply chain integration, crossovers, new business models and entrepreneurship? a What can food clusters learn from other clusters around the world? Can and should clustering in agrifood be stimulated? a How do food clusters fit in with their urban environment? How can they contribute to quality of life in and around cities?

Creating food clusters: lessons from governments worldwide (F1)

Miss. Leone Archary, from the Rural development & Land reform of South Africa shared an insightful story of the Agri-parks that started in 2015 in South Africa. She introduced a short video explaining the potential of South Africa in terms of rich soils, available lands, the people willing to work and the food security challenges to be addressed namely droughts, floods, and drop in production amongst others. The Agri-park program was thoughtfully brought in place as an innovative network system of the agro-production, processing, logistics, marketing, and training and extension services altogether.

Ms. Archary added that the Agri-park is made up of 3 major components mainly the Farmers Product Support Unit (FPSU), the Agri-Hub (AH) and the Rural – Urban Market Centers (RUMC) which harmoniously work to do several things. 1) Ensure the promotion of skills and support of small holder farmers who are the majority of farming community of Nelson Mandela’s country, 2) to ensure sustainable of the unused land, 3) to study what resources are in the area in order to incorporate development and 4) to prepare and transition the rural industrialization process.

This envisions enabling the South-African rural communities become viable, equitable and sustainable. The famous 70:30 model is used whereby the communities ensure 70% ownership of the whole program and the 30% is from the government in addition to providing a conducive environment for progress of the whole program.

In her closing remark Ms. Archary indicated that the program’s progress is impressive and this is due to the multistakeholder’s approach from National to provincial and local levels. Yet still among the challenges is ensuring the same level of understanding of the program across all the stakeholders, making it difficult for the Agri-parks narrative to become the common narrative of the people involved. One of the attention drawing concerns raised by a participant was, the best way to help small farmers is to enable them come out of poverty because small farmers are not small by choice but rather by poverty.

Internationalization & lean landing (F2) Two gentlemen, Mr. Lars Horsholt Jensen of Agro Business Park A/S and Mr. Michael Rottbøll of Quercus Group both from Denmark took the participants through an internationalization and lean landing workshop, interactively sharing the experiences of their companies. Lars and Michael explained internationalization in the trade context mainly where big companies connect with small ones. The Quercus Group for instance, is operating in Denmark and Kenya (Africa), connecting small and medium scale enterprises with executives from large companies

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who provide mentorship and knowledge sharing with the former through which companies can mutually find new export markets. Whereas the objective of lean landing is mainly creating value and validated learning among partners.

Lars and Michael both emphasized that the internationalization’s agenda can vary in the same cluster or between clusters but the primary value are to support internationalization process of cluster members. After the speakers tried to explain the concept of the topic, participants became more curious on what motivates the “mentors” from big companies to invest their time in small businesses which according to the presenters are at times out of the industry of operation of the mentor. Participants drew one main lesson: it is not easy to come up with something that can be implemented in one or two days even when there seems apparently no need for financial funds.

Applying the circular economy (F3) Peter Smeets kicked off his lecture by pointing out that the global food system can provide sufficient food supply for everybody on this planet. There is a lot of potential for food production, however the distribution seems to be a problem and climate change is worsening the problem. Here metropolitan food clusters come in, these forms of clusters can be used as innovative networks of agrifood producers, processors and distributors. The key for success is intelligent agrologistics and including decomposers in the food chain for a circular economy.

Consecutively, Toine Timmersmans discussed ecosystems for a circular food economy. The aim was to obtain less global food waste per capita and produce more sustainable foods. Within this change social innovation and looking differently at food is also key. For example, insects might present opportunities for food and feed in the future.

Food cluster Xchange: toolkit (F5) Carlos Tarrasón Collado, CEO of CLUSTER Competitiveness and Innovation CONSULTING, started off with an introduction about how his company increases competitiveness between clusters in Minas Gerais, Brazil. Brazil is a major producer and exporter of food to the world. What is special about Carlos’ strategy is that they do not focus on marketing the brand, but they are branding the region where the food is coming from. They are helping small farmers who have no marketing skills to better sell their products and improve the quality.

Floor Geerling-Eiff focused on the process of clusters. She stressed the importance that in order to establish knowledge and innovation together with public private partnership, all triple helix (government, private sector and academia) must have equal roles in the decision making process.

Henri Varlet from the European Foundation for Cluster Excellence specializes in providing support in the design and formulation of implementation policies and strategies for economic competitiveness of clusters. Their focus lies on improving the area of the Bekaa Valley in Lebanon. The area is known for the rich soil and dairy products, which they help selling to international buyers.

Margarida Colet Jané, cluster manager at AINS, emphasized the importance of finding partners that are willing to share information and resources the same way they are. The AINS has six clusters with something like 200 companies and networking and interaction with these partners are key factors when working together in clusters.

Maria Pedrals was the last speaker in this session. She is a partner and consultant at Cluster Development.

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She mainly addressed the fact that in food clusters, there is a lack of business development. Therefore, they need different strategies for different segments. A Cava bottle of 2 euros cannot be sold with the same strategy as a bottle of 20 euros. So cluster initiatives should be either segmented by strategy or strategy driven projects.

RE-Tour Agrifood (F6) This session was a product of several sessions in the food section being cancelled, and was attended by attendees and speakers from the cancelled sessions. The discussion started with questioning about the need for geographical proximity for a cluster. There were opposing sides in this discussion with one side trying to convince the other that geographical location is important but not necessary for the formation of a cluster, and the other trying to convince that geographical location is a key aspect for the formation of a cluster. With both sides having empirical proof for their respective arguments, the debate remained unresolved.

This was a discussion based learning process. Main key points are the competition in agrifood sector is only working together in the precompetitive phase. The government is needed for the process of cluster forming.

And, additionally a good remark “clusters are about people and relationships”. The discussion about geographical importance then stimulated the debate about the definition of a cluster itself. There were attempts from the attendees to define the distinction between associations and clusters to respond to the previous arguments from each respective side. It was said that it was very important that every stakeholder in the cluster have a common goal. It was also mentioned that it is important to consider that competing companies can exist in the same cluster and that collaborations among them are possible.

RE-tour Food Innovation (F7) This session was intended to evaluate the Health and Innovation Cluster Tour on Monday and to give suggestions for future improvements. The feedback was mainly positive as the participants enjoyed the Tour. Yet, only two people were present who actually participated in the tour. One of them noted that she heard many interesting people talk from all over the world but there was little time to get into a discussion.

It turned into a conversation on the differences between Brazil and the Netherlands in the development of clusters.

Carlos Tarrasón noted that in the Netherlands, there are more opportunities because they have political stability and better financial possibilities. In Brazil, however, they have different conditions, the biggest barrier being financial support for innovations. Unlike the Netherlands, they are not at the innovation level yet, they are still at the level to improve quality. They do not even have an innovation centre as there are no financial means to implement one.

Accordingly, Yorick de Bruin told Carlos that part of his project is the opening of an innovation centre in Bahia, Brazil next year. Carlos laughed and said to him, “you give me your card and I will write you again next year”. Another question was raised on how to better connect companies with academia. One of the participants proposed hackathons as a way to get the students and university together and develop ideas. Saskia added, “why not involve civil society?” and articulate with society to develop solutions adapted to society. That is something that is quite unique for the Netherlands, according to Carlos, this would not happen very easily in Brazil. As a final remark, Carlos suggested that the Netherlands must enrich their system with much more start-ups. This market is not yet booming and entrepreneurship should be one of the most important features of clusters. All in all, the participants learned from each other and were able to both criticize and give ideas for cluster management.

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High-tech & food matchmaking session (F9) “High tech to feed the world” faces several challenges: nutrition security, sustainability, consumer health and wellbeing, product quality and safety, decrease of workforce, economic feasibility and societal appreciation and trust are combined challenges in the agricultural sector. Innovation can help solve these challenges. Yet, those innovations also face challenges: for example, how do robots compete with the human workforce or how can conditions of an unfavourable environment be integrated? And further, when are and how will robots (are) accepted by society?

A complex program was established with a great number of public-private partnerships to reach goals for the Dutch innovation system in the Netherlands. Long-term goals of 20 years were set, and short time goals of ten years, five years, and two years were set in order to involve especially smaller enterprises, as was explained by Frans Kampers and José Vogelenzang.

Data collection, analysis and utilisation, automatization and control and materials formed horizontal steps of a crossroad model. For example, a cluster was created to build a robot that picks peppers and is competitive with human workforces in the next 20 years. Further examples were elaborated: What are the next steps of agriculture drones that find plants with pests, which require treatment? Creating maps, data calculations and how to spray are current activities, whereby the future asks for an autonomous machine that applies chemicals to the field directly .

Food clusters: creating a common policy advice (F10) Moderator Mirte Cofino designed a very practical and interactional session by applying the ‘Brown Paper method’.

The group was split into two groups, one acting as the government representatives and the other as the private sector.

The objective of the game was to see what happens when a food cluster is being developed.

The governmental group made sure to first define whether there is a need for clustering and whether there was a problem that needs to be fixed. The group then had to make the decision whether the government should even intervene. Afterwards, they looked whether there were existing policies that should be considered before starting a cluster and discussed economic and social objectives. On the basis of that, they agreed to increase competitiveness.

The government would then do a statistical analysis and on the basis of these outcomes, choose a sector and carry out a cluster mapping. At this point they would have to make a no/go decision, should they even do this? If the answer is ‘go’, they make the decision to start the cluster initiative workshops. The government then should define a common interest, find people who are willing to share ideas and resources and define when this cluster is attractive. Finally, they should decide whether they want a national or international cluster, the funding, and choose between a business and public-led group.

The private sector group had a very different structure of events. They first highlighted the need for trust and the willingness to cooperate. They then discussed general reasons why they should form a cluster. The needs to make a cluster included financing, lobbying, infrastructure, and access to knowledge. They listed some strategies and organizational structures and then focused on how to implement this plan and which actions were required. These included making a business plan, attracting companies, networking events, education and training.

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CHECK-IN: 3 questions in the app at the start of the Working Day

Q

A

With what mind-set are you here today? #54

To SHARE knowledge (interact & learn)

uestions

1.

nswers

69

%

To GAIN knowledge (listen) %

24

To SPREAD knowledge (speak) 7%

2.

How do you work with clusters?

From what perspective? #55

I STIMULATE and FACILITATE clusters %

46

I DEVELOP cluster-knowledge

24%

I DO NOT (YET); that's why I am here! 17%

3.

What approach to clusters is the most successful do you think? #34

I am IN THE MIDDLE of cluster practice 13% BROAD NETWORK CONCEPT (campuses, ecosystems, startups, etc)

62

%

SHARP DEFINITION and a simple/practical SET OF TOOLS %

38

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Brainport Development is the triple helix economic development company strengthening the Brainport Eindhoven Region (The Netherlands). www.brainportdevelopment.nl www.brainport.nl

Organising team Top row (from left to right) Audrey Meulendijks-Manders Communication Remco Kranendonk Academic track

Wageningen University & Research is the knowledge partner in agro, healthy food and living environments for governments and the business community-at-large. www.wur.nl

Ilse Verhoeven Secretary Francine Loos Communication Frank Eetgerink Speakers and content

TCI Network

Susan Janssen Event & Logistics

is the leading global network of main organisations and practitioners with deep expertise in clusters and competitiveness, who collaborate in a unique open, flexible and practical context to advance in the practice of competitiveness, innovation and cluster development.

Joep Brouwers General Manager

For more information about TCI-membership visit www.tci-network.org/

Bottom row (from left to right)

Jasmijn Rompa Content Peter Smeets Food track facilitator Mirte Cofino Food track

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Š Brainport Development NV, Wageningen University & Research, 2016 DISCLAIMER - The information in this publication is a report by participants of TCI 2016.

No rights can be derived from this information.

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